Growth of the settlements of Hassan Township and Fletcher Village brought about the arrival of the Manitoba Railroad (Osseo-St. Cloud Branch). Transportation routes through northwestern Hennepin County also played an important role in both the development of the area. At the turn of the century, the Great Northern Railroad sought to establish a depot, originally in Fletcher, but area farmers were reluctant to sell their land. Thus, the railroad located the depot one mile north and platted the town of Rogers.
By 1898 Rogers had become a bustling community. Among the early businesses at Rogers Siding were a blacksmith shop, two saloons, a saw mill, two stores, a hotel, an elevator and numerous other enterprises. The advent of the railroad resulted in a reduction in the use and importance of the Territorial Road. Likewise, the widening of U.S. Highway 52 from St. Paul north provided a more efficient mode of transportation. This led to less traffic and greater isolation around Fletcher.
How the City of Rogers Got Its Name
From Roscommon Ireland to Rogers, Minnesota as told by James Rogers
Thomas Rogers was born in 1810. At some point in mid nineteenth century, Thomas Rogers, emigrated to America. He was mature enough to have emigrated in the pre-famine years of population pressure in rural Ireland when Catholic landholders of few acrews had limited prospects of advancement. Surging population numbers at that time caused some sons in large families to consider alternative opportunity, even abroad, as being preferable to life on holdings of dwindling size. There is considerable evidence and information available and encouragement and inducement being at hand for people of ambition to emigrate to the United States or Canada at this period. Alternatively, Thomas Rogers could have yielded to the more desperate pressures of the mid to late 1840s when the repeated ruin of the blighted potato crop in Ireland caused the twin threat of hunger and disease of the Great Famine to loom large. Whatever the circumstances or time, it is fairly safe to conclude that the decision to emigrate took courage and enterprise and was taken in the interest of improving his economic outlook.
Migration from Massachusetts to Minnesota
Having married and lived in Massachusetts on the east coast of the United States for a time, Thomas and his wife Ann resolved to go west. They joined the tide of migrants who were seizing the opportunity to improve their position by occupying new lands and to carve a new nation from the virgin resources of the wilderness. It is easy to understand their attraction to the open countryside, to the ownership of good soil, to the opportunity to earn reward for hard work under an education and taxation system and laws that were fair.
They traveled with others, including Ann's father John Keegan. They arrived in Hassan Township accompanied by William Demery and Patrick and Mortimor Hynes. Congress had created a new Minnesota Territory in 1849 following agreement with the Sioux and Chippewa Indians regarding logging rights. Along with Borthwick and Harvey Hicks, they were the first European immigrants to settle in the district which would soon become part of the new State of Minnesota, which was admitted to the Union as the 32nd state in 1858.
The Rogers had nine surviving children, five boys and four girls, all born between the years 1852 and 1868. On October 2, 1860, Thomas and Ann Rogers purchased 160 statute acres in Minnesota from the U.S. Federal Government. It was described as Section 14, Township 120, range 23 of what was then, and still is, Hennepin County.
Pioneering/Business Saavy
Life was hard but rewarding. The advantages availed of were balanced by new difficulties and concerns. There were Indian uprisings in 1862, when many Minnesota men were away with Union armies in the Civil War. There were grasshopper plaques a few years earlier, and extremely long and cold winters that would not be normal in County Roscommon, Ireland. Temperatures often dropped below 0 to 20 and 30 degrees below zero, and snow was on the ground from early November to late March. The average snowfall was between three and four feet per season while forest fires were a constant threat. They were located southwest of the Great Lakes in "The Big Woods" in the north central part of America. Forests covered the greater proportion of this new state. Their land was situated close to but south of the Crow River, which flowed northeast to the great Mississippi and became the northern boundary of Hennepin County.
In 1861, Thomas Rogers sold 60 acres of his holding to John Keegan and his wife Ellen. Thomas Rogers could be deemed to be hard working, enterprising and possess sound business sense. He started and operated a sawmill and lumbering business to utilize the abundant and rich natural resource of hardwood trees, and to supply the needs of the nascent and developing local economy. The great growing urban centers of Minneapolis and St. Paul were hungry for the raw materials of progress. The sawmill thrived, but was disadvantaged, however, with regard to other riverbank mills by not having immediate access to the river for transportation purposes.
The Railroad
This period coincided with the building of railroads across the United States to service the growing requirements of communication and trade. Mr. James J. Hill, the business entrepreneur and railroad builder was in the process of building a railroad from St. Paul north to St. Cloud and through to Manitoba, Canada. The preference of railway engineers has been to keep to level terrain, particularly river valleys. It was of major strategic importance to Thomas Rogers' sawmill business as to which side of the river the engineers chose to lay the track. Through representations made to James J. Hill, the railroad was laid to give a convenient siding to the Rogers sawmill. This helped the business to further prosper and develop.
Records show that Thomas Rogers, Jr. deeded one acre of land to the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railroad on the 29th of April, 1887, for one dollar. The land to be used as a siding for rail cars, thence to be known as Rogers Siding. This section of land had been purchased by Thomas in 1880. He sold the balance of this holding in 1887.
Incorporation of the City
In 1914, nearly sixty years after the first settlers came to the territory, the growing population around this enterprise was developing a sense of community and identity. Notices of election for a petition for the incorporation of the village were posed to give notice of a plebiscite to be held at Scharbers Hall between six a.m. and 9 p.m. on the 17th of February, 1914. Of the 41 votes cast, the judges, Mike Borck, Henry Milless and E.S. Wiggins found 32 votes in favor and nine against the official incorporation of the village to be named "Rogers" after its founding family. This followed a fashion of the time in the growing villages and towns of the new states to name towns after individual or family names. Many of these are Irish origin. The number of voters in 1914 indicates that the Village of Rogers was only then emerging as an urban entity.
Rivers and railroads were the main routes of transportation and automobiles were few. Daniel Hawkins served as the first postmaster of the 'Rogers Siding' Post Office, which opened in 1884. The first City Council session in Rogers was held at the State Bank of Rogers on Main Street in 1914. E.S. Wiggin was the president, Mike Borck, H.F. Dahlheimer, and Henry Dehn were Trustees, D.E. Janson was the Recorder, and Philip Scharber was Street Commissioner.
The growth of Rogers from village to town is based on manufacturing, distribution and service industries. This parallels the growth of the state as a whole which was based on food and related products from the rich soil, lumber and mining. In the 1940s, Minnesota was producing almost 60% of the nations iron ore.
The City of Rogers now has a population of approximately 6000 and is situated 45 miles from the Twin Cities, St. Paul, Minneapolis and the Minnesota State Capital.